Gallifrey: The Shining World
by Brock Anderson
Summary: Hyperion, a young Time Lord, meets a mysterious man and begins to see the cracks in Gallifreyan society. Book 1 in The Gallifrey Chronicles.


**Gallifrey: The Shining World**

_CHAPTER 1_

My hearts beat as I tear through the tall, untamed grass. I hear the shouting of my friends, and I look through the sea of red grass to try and peek where they are searching. We are currently playing hide and seek; it's a new game that Taliara told us about.

Of course, I couldn't see them with their red robes on. I keep my head low as I run through the field. I find a nice rock, and I sit down and look for them once again. Suddenly, a shriek rises from the field, and one of my hearts skips a beat as fear rips through me.

"Where are you?" I scream at the top of my lungs. "Where are you guys? WHAT HAPPENED?"

I listen for a moment, and call out again. I see the grass ahead rustling, and a large snarl fills the air. Another shriek points me in the right direction, and I am off. I run through the grass until I find myself bursting through the edge of the field. There, huddled on the ground is Akabari. He holds his leg. His robes are stained a darker red.

"Akabari?" I ask him inching closer.

He turns around to face me and I gasp. Taliara grabs a hold of my hand, and we look on with horror in our faces.

"Guys? It's started hasn't it?" Akabari asks with terror dripping from every word.

Taliara buries her face into my shoulder while I watch as Akabari stands up, and looks at his hands. He gasps and covers his face.

"What happened?" I manage to whimper out.

He looks at me with confusion at first, but then manages to realize what I was asking. He wasn't thinking properly. I heard it affects your thinking, and mental capabilities for at least twenty four hours.

"There was a stripped pig bear." He laughs.

Why would he be laughing? He's lucky the stripped pig bear ran off before it killed him before it could begin. I turn my head to see if it was still lurking in the grass.

"Is it over?" Taliara asks, her voice muffled from my robe.

"Oh, no. It's only just begun." Akabari laughs.

He holds out his hands as bright specks of dust break off of his skin. Millions begin to float around him, encircling his body.

"It's okay Taliara! Look! It's beautiful! I'll still be here afterwards." Akabari tells her with serenity in his voice.

Taliara takes her face out from my shoulder, and looks at Akabari. She gasps in amazement and wonder. Her brow furrows, and her eyes light up. Her mouth hangs open, and she inches forward, closer to the time energy. She drops my hand. She reaches forward, as my hand falls to my side. She touches the small particles, and watches as the brightly colored specks change colors. They move around, and change colors as Akabari moves his hands as the particles slowly emit from them

"It's amazing." She laughs.

A tear falls from Taliara's cheek and a few hundred specks rush to collect the tear. They swarm the drop, and split it's atoms. Akabari jolts.

"I felt that. I mean, I _felt _that inside of me." He stutters.

"What do you mean you felt that?" I ask.

"When it split the drop of water, or tears – or, WHATEVER I felt a surge of energy inside of me." Akabari tells us.

I lean forward, and grab Taliara's hand to pull her back away. She complies. Akabari's shoulders lunge forward, and his body starts to emit more time particles.

"It's started." I whisper.

Akabari looks up at us. He smiles, but his eyes pierce me. They looks devastatingly sad. It's as if he was full of terror, and sorrow. As if he would never see us again. As if someone else would come away and take his body, and leave him alone in the unknown.

"It's okay." I yell at him.

His lips quiver, and he looks at Taliara. She blows him a kiss. Akabari holds his hands out in front of him, and the time energy pours out with such intensity that it looks as if a river of water was pouring out of him. He grabs a hold of his face, and feels it as time energy is released from every pore. He looks at us again, and smiles.

"See you in a bit." He laughs.

His body violently shakes, and regeneration is under way. His arms flail at his sides, and his head reaches towards the sky. He screams, as if it was tearing every atom of his existence apart. Taliara shrieks in terror. I cover her, as Akabari begins to rise off of the ground. His red robes flap as the time energy erupts from beneath them. The time energy circles around in the sky forming a pattern in the orange expanse. It's as if it was a ribbon flowing in the wind, but the ribbon was growing longer, and longer.

Eventually the sound of the time energy erupting from his body stops. Taliara moves out from under me, and she looks up in awe. I follow her lead, and look upon the most amazing sight I have ever seen. Akabri was no longer here, but where his body once was, _was_ nothing.

"Where did he go?" She gasps.

We look upon the sky with such curiosity. A grey cloud rolls over, and suddenly we are able to see every particle of Akabari. His body was ripped into a trillion pieces of time energy. There was no Akabari, because he was spread across the sky. His regeneration is taking every atom of his body and rearranging them. There was never any _new _body we heard stories about, but the same exact body but just rearranged.

"There. That's him." I whisper into her ear.

"Where?" She screams. "There? In the sky? What happened to him?"

"That's every atom of his existence. That's every atom of Akabari. In fact, that is Akabari."

"That's bloody brilliant." She says.

As we look on, the time particles shift places, and perform a complicated dance. It looks like chaos, but really is just a perfected bodily function. It's just like our hearts beating, and our blood moving throughout the body. We were made for this. This wasn't an accident. This was how regeneration is supposed to happen. It's as if this point in history was supposed to happen this _exact _way.

"Here he comes." She laughs.

She puts her hands to her lips, and watches as the time energy is absorbed back into the robes. And with a bright flash of light, and pulse of time energy, knocking Taliara and I back onto the ground, Akabari is back.

"Well, that was an experience." He laughs. "Oh, new voice. That's odd. It's a bit deep! I mean it's deep for a ten year old!"

"Well it suits your adult mind." Taliara laughs.

I look at the new person standing before me. His blonde hair is gone, and it is replaced with a darker color with hints of black. His eyes are now a deep blue rather than his hazel eyes. When the first Akabari was around he had dimples, and now this one just has a smile. He is much slimmer. He is different, but somewhere deep inside I can tell it is still Akabari.

"Your taller than me now." I tell him with pain in my voice.

He looks at me with his foreign eyes, and smiles. He teeth are straighter, too. I laugh at my superficial thoughts. He thinks my laughter is a reaction to my remark about his height and he joins in.

"So what did it look like?" He asks with wonder, and curiosity fills his eyes.

I guess that's what our eyes look liked. Pooled with wonder, curiosity, and fear of the unknown. I imagine the sight of the two of us staring into the sky.

"It was unbelievable." She laughs.

"So, what do I look like?" He changes the subject without thought. I guess the thing about having your mind messed with is true.

"You're no longer a blonde." I laugh.

He smiles with the intent of laughter, but then lurches forward and writhes out in pain. The two of us jump forward and catch him before his face can contact the ground. I grab him, and lift him onto my back. He wraps his legs around my abnormally large hips, and I take off toward The Capital.

"Taliara!" I scream out.

She pops around my side, and looks at me.

"I need you to run as fast as you can, and get help!" I tell her.

"I can't run that fast! We'll just stay just as close together as we are now." She points out.

I look at her, and we both know what we have to do. I lean backwards, and set Akabari on the ground. He moans in excruciating pain.

"What will this do to us?" Taliara asks me.

I have no idea. I don't know if we will survive, or if we will be able to regenerate. I am terrified. I have always been terrified of the unknown. A time lord is terrified of ignorance.

"Nothing." I lie with a smile.

We both hold out our hands. I extend my fingers as long as they can reach, and then I can feel it. It's as if a hole is on the center of my palm, and it is shut. I look up at Taliara, and she looks at me.

"You feel it?" I ask her trying to sound as encouraging as possible.

"Yeah, I got it." She whimpers.

I imagine as if I open the hole in my palm. I feel it. It's as if the hole actually opened. Suddenly, time energy starts to come out of the pores in my palm. It flies out, and dances around in the sky. It looks just like it did when Akabari regenerated.

"This feels so weird." Taliara points out.

She is right. It feels like small granules of sand are falling out of each of my pores, but at the same time it is fascinating. There is no pain to it. There is no joy to it. It's exactly at the point between pain and pleasure. I look at Taliara and she looks at me. Her eyes are filled with fear.

"Hush." I shush her when she tries to talk. "This is to save Akabari. You love him don't you? He would do the same for us! I know the warnings! I know the consequences!" I tell her.

Her eyes are emptied of terror, and a burning passion takes the terror's place.

"I love him just as much as you do. I am ready." She persists.

She walks over to me with time energy pouring from her hands. She looks at me, and smiles. I look at her, and I see a tear falling from her cheek.

"It's going to be fine." I whisper.

The wind picks up, and her hair flows back from her face. I look at her.

"I know. It's the unknown." She tells me.

She feels the same way. The fear of the unknown terrifies her just as much as it terrifies me. We stand there, and look at each other.

"Five." I whisper.

Her lips quiver.

"Four."

Her eyes swell up with tears.

"Three."

My stomach tightens with fear.

"Two."

She holds out her hands. I take a step back from her. I can't do this!

"One." She screams.

She jumps forward, and takes my hands. I scream in terror, and I drop to the ground. Taliara follows me. We sit on our knees far apart, and our arms form a bridge between us. My hands burn with fury, and I stare at the light emitting from them.

The time energy from her hands collide with mine. The once perfect dance they performed is now chaos. The energy swarms around us, and it picks up speed to where I can't see them. They create wind that blow our robes in a circular fashion. Taliara looks at me.

"What have we done?" I cry into the roar of the time energy.

"We are saving Akabari's life!" She screams at me with fury in her voice.

I look at her, and she is furious. She is mad at me for being afraid.

Our hands fasten together, and suddenly the light emitting from our hands erupts into the sky. It reaches above the clouds and explodes with an enormous ball of time energy.

Suddenly, we are surrounded with TARDISes. They are lined in a semi-circle. Large men with red robes like ours step out of the machines, and look at us.

"You coward!" Taliara screams at me; she hasn't noticed the men.

"Taliara!" I scream at her pointing to the men.

She jumps to her feet, and runs over to the closet man. She screams at him to go help Akabari. The man motions to the others. They walk over to Akabari, and inspect him. They pick him up, and carry him into one of the TARDISes.

I notice time energy falling from the sky. I look up, and see the cloud of energy raining down. Something's odd though. I look at each particle, and I notice that they are only falling on Taliara and I. I look at my hands, and see the time energy being absorbed into them.

"Talaira!" I scream.

Taliara turns around, and I look at her. Her eyes are full of hate, and disgust.

"The time energy!" I try to tell her.

She turns back around and starts frantically talking to the man. All the while the time energy is being absorbed into her, all without her knowledge.

I feel a touch on my shoulder and I turn around to see three men standing before me. I stand up, and I look at their gold head dresses.

"Hyperion?" The man in the middle asks. He is wearing a long white robe.

I look at him with fear returning to my body.

"Lord President?" I respond; my voice shaking.


End file.
